It’s easy to obtain high level agreement or on generalities. It’s hard to disagree with statements like, “We should communicate better.” Or “As humanitarians, we should share information with each other.” The details of what is meant is often where the challenges are. When we get into the details, we find another person’s understanding of those statements is different than ours.

This also happens within ourselves. Our fear tentacles come alive, worry sets in, and we are afraid. Or shame kicks in. Or the imposter syndrome occupies our main stage. Most often this happens at a high level within us and takes over colouring everything with the same brush.

But what happens if we recognise it and choose to get into the detail with it. Even give it a name. I am not a psychologist, but one of the things that happens is that we ‘create’ the idea that ‘it’ is not ‘us’. This is powerful because then we have a bit more agency. We can talk with it. We can choose to dance with it. Perhaps even do the two-step. Listen to Peter Shepherd, aka, the Human Periscope, describe the imposter two-step here.

I don’t know if this works on a group level, but in any change situation each team member will be experiencing aspects of anxiety. Helping your team dance with their imposters, dance with their fears, is critical for success. But it requires getting into a certain level of detail.

I’m no dancer, but I’m not sure you can do the two-step with a generic crowd. You need a specific partner.

Photo by Scott Broome